"IS ANYBODY PAYING ATTENTION?" The mindful view of an educated Buddhist blogger who uses critical thinking, evidence, facts, and investigation to come up with his opinions instead of fear based ideologies.

Thank you for writing to me with your concerns about H.R. 83, the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015. I appreciate hearing your thoughts on this issue.

As you may know, on December 13, 2014, Congress passed H.R. 83, which is the $1.1 trillion federal appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2015. I did not vote for the bill because I was concerned with the process whereby we pass a 1,603 page, $1.1 trillion spending bill ? without adequate time to carefully review, debate and absolutely no ability to amend. It is my hope that the Senate will go back to "regular order" and consider each one of the 12 individual appropriations bills with ample time to debate and amend policy concerns. Please be assured that I will keep your views in mind when we consider appropriations bills in the 114th Congress.

Thank you again for contacting me with your concerns on this issue. Please do not hesitate to contact me again with this or any other matter of concern.

Sunday, December 28, 2014

Thursday, December 11, 2014

I hasten to preface this article with the immediate admission that I copied and pasted parts of this letter to my local senator with my outrage because of an article posted and copied and pasted many of the parts of the article (Source Cited below my signature, if you want to read their entire article.) directly into his "request submission form" so, the information in this piece are not strictly my own, just my opinions are.
People used to call Bill Clinton "Slick Willie" for putting side issues into a bill he wanted passed that he knew no one would read completely and therefore get issues passed that no one would have voted for by hiding them in a bill that was originally about issues that no one would dare vote against. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the entire Tea Party Caucus have done the same thing but they are trying to pass measures that are so outrageous that everyone in the public has noticed and even internet bloggers are calling attention to. My message to John McCain in full said this:"If the omnibus budget deal passes as is, then we are going to be in real trouble in the U.S., with $479 MILLION FOR WARPLANES THAT THE PENTAGON DIDN'T ASK FOR (and said they were obsolete, do we really need to talk about the Military Industrial Complex? Your party already glutted them during the Bush administration.), $93 MILLION CUT FROM THE WOMEN, INFANTS AND CHILDREN (WIC) NUTRITION PROGRAM (Once again ignoring the needs of many over a few rich greedy people.), NULLIFICATION OF VOTER-BACKED MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION IN D.C. (Which would mean progress instead of the present useless "war on drugs" that only lines the pockets of privatized prisons and the police agencies who chase pot while funding it by importing and selling drugs like cocaine and heroin in the United States, and have been caught repeatedly doing just that.), THE BILL THAT CITIGROUP WROTE (After the 2008 financial crisis, a lot of people were understandably less enthusiastic about derivatives — A financial instrument that played a major role in the crisis and led to the collapse and $85 billion taxpayer bailout of insurance giant AIG. As Ben Protess of the New York Times explained, Congress used the 2010 Dodd-Frank law to create “a requirement that banks “push out” some derivatives trading into separate units that are not backed by the government’s deposit insurance fund. The proponents of the push-out rule argued that it would isolate risky trading from parts of a bank eligible for a government bailout.” Since everyone from the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street was infuriated by the big bank bailouts, you’d think Congress would still be taking a victory lap for passing a measure that makes bailouts less likely. Instead, they’re using the budget bill to sneakily kill it.) This will lead to another banking crisis that will be self inflicted, which is once again, how your party, as you so aptly put it, has lost their way. They care only about lobbyists and soft money contributions, not about the American people.Also, MORE BIG MONEY IN POLITICS, which is something you voted against in the McCain/Feingold Act and your party seems to be trying to become an oligarchy and a plutocracy. But what it comes down to is, corporatism IS FASCISM and that is what you seem to be faced with. Certain party members aren't supposed to decide for the public, against their wishes and votes, what they think "THE PUBLIC NEEDS" based on greed and corruption, and when I look at the amount of time you and others have faced, trying to get people to believe yours is not a party of rich old greedy, out of touch white men, then, I am straining to see a difference and can't. My point is, DO NOT VOTE FOR THE OMNIBUS BILL UNTIL THOSE FIVE AMENDMENTS ARE REMOVED. Thank You, Steve Walker of Phoenix, AZ"
I will post his reply if I receive one and then we can compare what I said to him with what excuses he gives me.
Later. Arizona Mildman
Source Cited: http://bulletin.represent.us/5-awful-things-congress-snuck-omnibus-budget-deal

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Monday, December 8, 2014

Hi, everyone, I am kind of steamed tonight. I am sick of people trying to excuse the shooting of unarmed people by the police when they have so many other options available because the police in question are either SCARED

or RACIST which means pretty much the same thing when it gets down to it.
Last night someone that I consider a friend said something that made me go the fuck off. He started on the old FOX NEWS racist rich white prick commentator privileged idiot comments about how most black people get killed by other black people. Well, that is true, but completely irrelevant and is only brought up by uninformed people who want to ACT like they know something about the subject because they heard that from a racism apologist like Ann Coulter. Well, here goes.
Yes, most black people get killed by other black people. Most white people are killed by other white people. Most Native Americans are killed by other Americans (at least in the last eighty years or so), and so on and so on. This guy actually called that an FBI statistic.
Here is the actual statistics for that exact subject IF YOU READ THE WHOLE STORY. Here are some numbers for you from the latest report I could find quickly online (2009):"Of the 13,636 murder victims in 2009 for which supplemental data were received, ... Of the homicides for which the FBI received weapons data, most (71.8 percent) ... In 2009, 24.2 percent of victims were slain by family members; 53.8 percent were killed by someone they knew (acquaintance, neighbor, friend, boyfriend, etc.) ..."

So, SINCE WE ALL GET KILLED BY A FRIEND OR FAMILY MEMBER IN OUR OWN COMMUNITY, the comment that, "Most black people are killed by other black people..." has no significance and means NOTHING and the only reason anyone who uses that tired rationalisation uses it is to try to make excuses for RACISM, IGNORANCE, and INCOMPETENCE on the part of the police.

Let's take racism and race completely out of the picture (hard to do because it was a white cop and an unarmed black teenager). But we will do just that.

OK, in the United States, law enforcement has rules that they have to live by, also. One has to do with the words, "DUE FORCE NECESSARY". Which means, as a friend of mine told me once, "When someone steps on your foot, it isn't equal and just to cut off his head."

When the police have a Sam Brown belt that has mace/pepper spray, handcuffs, a nightstick, and in their car they have a bean bag gun and a net gun to use and as this demonstrates, it is completely effective without deadly force.

So, BACK TO THE ACTUAL conversation, NO ONE ANYWHERE, NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU DID, needs to be shot to death for anything other than a last resort. And the following meme expresses what I think of the people who try to say that black people, who are being murdered by the police, are "trying to play the race card".

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

On November 23rd, I read something that unnerved me, a racist statement by Ira Hansen from Nevada and I wrote to John McCain. What I said was, "Incoming Nevada Assembly Speaker Ira Hansen of the Republican Party said in a statement publicly that, "...the relationship of Negroes and Democrats is truly a master-slave relationship. with the benevolent master knowing what's best for his simple minded darkies."He actually said this out loud. I don't have the time or patience to explain how many levels on which this is completely wrong and racially insensitive and insulting to fellow Democrats, since I am caucasian, progressive, and not a Christian (as I know several places in the bible and other religious texts that it not only never speaks out against slavery, it condone it and actually gives instructions on "how to" own and treat slaves).You have a choice. It is bad enough that so many of your party use race as a vote rallying tool, but condoning this language and this ignorance publicly is apathy. Apathy means you don't care, which means you ignore racism amongst your party. Some members of your party have tried really hard to keep from wording anything that might even have the slightest hint of being racially insensitive, much less racist. But this blatant attempt to convince racists that their motives are pure and giving them an excuse to call racism "correct" and rational, instead of what it is, ignorance and fear, coupled with hate from generations of the mutual admiration society that tells each other that they are the "right kind" of people, and deserve to look down on other human beings. It makes me glad to be progressive, it makes me glad to be Buddhist, and it makes me glad to be a man who stands up for and voices his condemnation of people who think they are better than everyone else.I will be waiting to hear about your condemnation of his behavior in the Arizona Republican and AZcentral.comThank You In Advance,
And today, December 3rd, 2014 I received this reply:
"...

Dear Mr. Walker:

Thank you for sharing your views with me. I am pleased that you took the time to write.

Your concerns, opinions and views are important to me and help me do a better job in

the United States Senate. Your input on this matter is of much value to me.

Monday, December 1, 2014

It occurs to me today that most people are afraid to confront people who are wrong on their ideological fallacies and illogical behaviors. The result? The party of lies and liars (to themselves as well as others) has never been properly confronted. The problem we face is the fact that government officials, especially candidates for office, of any kind, know better than to disillusion the delusional. Republicans are the party of conservatives, no matter how wrong they are, for fear of losing votes.
People who call themselves today's "conservatives" lie to themselves and others constantly rather than face reality. When you ask them what "being conservative" means, as so many of them are quick to tell us, they reply that it means, "...that we have 'a different opinion" about how things 'should' work."
This isn't black and white or logical thinking. This is the thinking of people who have to lie to themselves in order to keep from admitting to themselves that they were and are still wrong. Conservatives aren't the only ones to do that. Not accepting reality is NOT having a different opinion, it is an attempt to have a different reality, and that condition on earth doesn't exist. No one wants to tell them this because then you would have to completely prove that everything they believe in, including their religious texts, are is not real, althought one part of their beliefs being real and therefore, that one real fact making all the rest real is called a which can be done, but takes a long time because they have been taught to believe in the ad populum fallacy. In teaching the blocks to critical thinking, in my opinion, this should be right up there with cultural conditioning and egocentric thinking.
The definition stated in "The Skeptic's Dictionary" says,

"...The ad populum fallacy is the appeal to the popularity of a claim as a reason for accepting it.The number of people who believe a claim is irrelevant to its truth. Fifty million people can be wrong. In fact, millions of people have been wrong about many things: that the Earth is flat and motionless, for example, and that the stars are lights shining through holes in the sky."

When confronted with this illusion by conservatives, the proper and confrontational reply should be, "Ask yourself, "When the majority of people thought that the earth was flat, did that make the earth flat?" ." But we never ask that question.

"Listen to the rest of the definition.)

"...The ad populum fallacy is also referred to as the bandwagon fallacy, the appeal to the mob, the democratic fallacy, and the appeal to popularity. The ad populum fallacy is seductive because it appeals to our desire to belong and to conform, to our desire for security and safety. It is a common appeal in advertising and politics. A clever manipulator of the masses will try to seduce those who blithely assume that the majority is always right. Also seduced by this appeal will be the insecure, who may be made to feel guilty if they oppose the majority or feel strong by joining forces with large numbers of other uncritical thinkers."

If anyone with a brain looks logically at conservative thinking, they come to realize that conservatives us fallacy logic reasoning on themselves to get themselves to believe anything and therefore get themselves to believe fantasy instead of reality. Most of this starts at a young age with people who don't want to take the time to think, study, read, or investigate anything through to it's actual real conclusion.

In fact, I would hasten to defy anyone that is reading this to look at the list of "informal fallacies" and ask yourself which one you haven't heard yourself say or think, before you started thinking critically. But with the conservative person, critical thinking is supposedly "liberal" and wrong minded, so they don't allow themselves, or others like them, to investigate anything purposely. As in the case of the earth being round, that was a long drawn out fight and when it comes to global maps, some still contain pictures of sea monsters and other disasters that one would face when they fell off the edge of "Flat World Earth".

In the case of mainstream conservative religions, when someone, even as a child, questions anything they are being told to swallow whole, that they are the ones who are in mortal danger and spiritually UNFIT if they don't HAVE FAITH and COME TO BELIEVE in something that logically doesn't have any proof or evidence and then they fall into using the logical fallacy that something that can't be proven to NOT EXIST therefore exists.

I might as well say, "Well you can't prove that there aren't fairies and unicorns just because YOU haven't seen one."

Also, ...Some people who call themselves "liberals" are just as guilty of being idiots and that makes everyone who uses open minded critical thinking, the actual liberals, to be colored as idiots by conservatives, who comparatively consider themselves on a higher ground.THE BOTTOM LINE:
If you can't use facts and logic to prove your point, then you have no point. No matter if you call yourself liberal or conservative, make sure your facts are straight or you will make everyone who actually is liberal or conservative look like an idiot, because by declaring your taking their side, you have made yourself a representative of what they believe in. We probably, in critical thinking, should not even use labels like that but so many do.
Now, let's look at the difference in the definitions of the two personal character contexts.
First, the actual definitions of what liberal and conservative mean.
As per the dictionary;liberal[lib-er-uh l, lib-ruh l]adjective1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.2. (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism, especially the freedom of the individual and governmental guarantees of individual rights and liberties.4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, especially as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, especially with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: (e.g. a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.)6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: (e.g. a liberal attitude toward foreigners.)noun14. a person of liberal principles or views, especially in politics or religion.15. (often initial capital letter) a member of a liberal party in politics,especially of the Liberal party in Great Britain.
And now for the polar opposite:conservative[kuh n-sur-vuh-tiv] adjective1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: (e.g. a conservative estimate.)3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.4. (often initial capital letter) of or pertaining to the Conservative party.5. (initial capital letter) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Conservative Jews or Conservative Judaism.6. having the power or tendency to conserve or preserve.7. Mathematics. (of a vector or vector function) having curl equal to zero; irrotational; lamellar.noun8. a person who is conservative in principles, actions, habits, etc.9. a supporter of conservative political policies.10. (initial capital letter) a member of a conservative political party, especially the Conservative party in Great Britain.11. a preservative.

And I beg you to ask yourself, "Which one defines the people who surge ahead with ideas and help the world, not just themselves, and which self-centeredly deny the rest of the world an inch of compromise, not looking to a possibility of their own selves maybe being wrong?

So, when you go out there into the world with your knowledge of facts and are confronted with someone else's ignorance, especially when their argument is that their ignorance matches facts, we must not walk away without saying WHY they are wrong, so we must arm ourselves with the truth.

It isn't easy being smarter, but it is more internally peaceful. I dare say, when you know what you base everything on is based on facts and you can prove through sources you found the information at that you are right, sleeping at night and not wondering isn't always as easy as it could be initially, but it is better than sleeping like a baby based on blissful ignorance.

About Me

I am an Arizona native, born and raised in Phoenix, although I have lived for brief times in other places. I am what one would call a Centrist. I don't believe in radical left or right stances and refuse to let the low information, regressive, right wing people call me "liberal" since that would be left of reality based on opinion, and I believe in facts and research of evidence.